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April 28, 2012

In April 2011, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of India quietly issued
‘Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011’
restricting web content that are designated as “disparaging,”
“harassing,” “blasphemous” or “hateful.” Rishabh Dara at The Center for Internet And Society cites the rule's chilling effects on free expression on the Internet.

Moreover, the Indian government has asked the United States to ensure that India-specific objectionable content are removed from the social networking such as Facebook, Google
and YouTube. According to news reports they also want these
international service providers to set up servers in India to help
regulate the content locally.

We have already seen several incidents of online contents being taken down for containing ‘offensive’ content. Vinaya Naidu
shares how the Mumbai Police Crime Branch put a ban on cartoonist Aseem
Trivedi's website www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.com, following a
complaint that his cartoons were disrespectful to the nation:

There was no legal notice, no court order, no advance
warning and not even a letter/email requesting to remove the
objectionable content. And this is the freedom of expression in the
world’s largest democracy. Since then, Aseem has continued to fight
against corruption through his blog ‘www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.blogspot.in’ which is quite under the scanner.

To be frank, the Internet scares the shit out of them,
especially after WikiLeaks, the unshackled conversations over Twitter
and Facebook and social networking-supported civic unrests. And it’s not
just the government; all the agencies, may it be bureaucracy, the
conventional mainstream media and the old school businesses that thrive
on people’s inability to communicate with each other, would like to
throttle the free flow of information on the Internet. Precisely this is
the reason why there is no hue and cry on TV channels on the
government’s new censorship drive.

Amrit lists the threats according to the new Information Technology
Guidelines notified by the government which will create an Orwellian
world.

Since its founding, the independent Indian nation-state
has wielded censorship as a tool to both contain the conflicts that
emanate from India’s tremendous diversity and to ensure its homogeneous
social, moral and political development. [..]
But if the advent of satellite television already revealed the
vulnerabilities of this strategy, the Internet has of course made clear
that in the long term, it is simply untenable. [..]

India’s use of censorship as a way to ensure national harmony has of
course to some extent always had to elide, and silence, the enormous
diversity within Indian society itself; censorship always benefits the
status quo, and the Indian case has been no different.

This video by Internet Democracy Project shows the impact of the new IT rules:
The Indian Netizens are not sitting idle.

In view of the possible deleterious effects of the Rules,
the Honorable Member of Parliament, Shri P. Rajeeve has moved a
statutory motion to get the aforesaid Rules annulled. This motion has
been admitted and will be coming up before the Rajya Sabha during the
second half of the Budget session of the parliament that starts on 24th
of April, 2012.

The press release calls all MPs to support the annulment motion. In the meantime a public interest litigation, calling the amended IT rules “unconstitutional”, has been filed in Kerala.
Here is a list of more campaigns:

Protests are going in several parts of the country against the IT rule. Ashfaq reports about a protest on 21 April:

FreeSoftware Movement Karnataka(FSMK)
organized a protest to show our concern over these vaguely made laws.
Blogger's, students, Teachers, IT professionals, Photographers came
together in the center of the city shouting slogans and holding banners
showing their apathy towards this new rule.

Protest at Karnataka. Image Courtesy Ashfaq at Just Another Coincidence. Click on the image to see more pictures.

A mass of young, energetic and vibrant youth, software
engineers and bloggers voiced their opinion. Being among them I felt the
power of connectivity, an air of pride, of struggle for freedom. People
sang in vigor, held placards and shouted slogans to save the internet.

I really hope the Indian government keeps the democracy alive by not
passing the bill.Let's all strive for betterment of the society and let
freedom of expression prevail.

Freedom in a cage campaign. Image Courtesy Save Your Voice. Click on image for more pictures

Another protest by Save Your Voice titled “Freedom In A Cage” was held in April 22, in Delhi's Jantar Mantar. Check the report and the pictures at the Kafila blog.